THE TENNESSEAN HAS POSTED ITS PROMISED STORY on Al Gore’s zinc mine. Here’s a passage you’ll probably hear on talk radio tomorrow:

Even Gore noted in his letter that, according to Scorecard, “pollution releases from the mine in 2002 placed it among the ‘dirtiest/worst facilities’ in the U.S.”

That said, it’s not clear that Gore himself has done anything wrong, though he’s clearly made money from a project that’s pretty environmentally unfriendly. But this will add to the perception that Gore’s green talk is hypocritical, I suspect. As I’ve noted below, if you adopt a quasi-messianic posture, people will judge your actions very differently than if you do not.